A former employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) based in Afghanistan pleaded guilty yesterday (July 25, 2017) to soliciting approximately $320,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors in return for his assistance in U.S. government contracts.

Mark E. Miller, 48, a Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), pleaded guilty before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Springfield, Illinois. Miller is scheduled to be sentenced on November 30, by U.S. District Judge Richard H. Mills.

During the court hearing, Miller testified that he worked for the USACE from 2005 until 2015, including in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012. From February 2009 to October 2011, Miller was assigned to a military base, Camp Clark, in eastern Afghanistan. While in Afghanistan, Miller was the site manager and a COR for a number of construction projects.

Miller testified to the fact that on Dec. 10, 2009, the USACE awarded a contract worth approximately $2.9 million to an Afghan construction company for the construction of a road from eastern Afghanistan to the Pakistani border. This contract later increased in value to approximately $8,142,300. Miller oversaw the work of the Afghan company on this road project, including verifying that the company performed the work called for by the contract and authorizing progress payments to the company by the USACE.

Miller admitted that, in the course of overseeing the contract with the Afghan company, he solicited approximately $280,000 in bribes from the owners of the company, in return for assisting the company in connection with the road project, including making sure the contract was not terminated. Miller further admitted that, after the contract was no longer active, he solicited an additional $40,000 in bribes in return for the possibility of future contract work and other benefits.

A former General Services Administration contracting director pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges in a scheme to get her husband federal and private contracting jobs.

Helen Renee Ballard, 51, and Robert Ballard, 56, of Brandywine, Md, pleaded guilty on March 23, 2017 to a charge of conspiracy to make false statements to the federal government. An additional 11 counts, including charges of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and making false statements, were dropped in a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Renee Ballard, a former director of GSA’s Central Office Contracting Division, admitted to helping her husband Robert get jobs at a federal contractor working for GSA by pumping up his resume and manipulating the hiring process to get the highest salaries possible, according to court documents. She also shopped her husband’s falsely augmented resume around to other federal agency human resources departments.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has put the selection of a new FBI headquarters on hold pending congressional appropriations, throwing into question the fate of the agency’s protracted search for a new home.

In a statement, the federal government’s real estate arm said it has worked diligently with the FBI since it first postponed the announcement in the fall but that “appropriations are necessary in order for us to make an announcement and move forward with the next critical steps under the [environmental impact study] process and ultimately make an award.”

Sites in Greenbelt, Landover and Springfield are in the running for the new agency headquarters.

Former Defense Department official Roy E. Friend of Virginia has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for stealing government property.

Friend was sentenced on Dec. 20, 2016, based on his Mar. 24th guilty plea.

According to a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, Friend, a civilian employee of the Department of Defense (DoD) who worked as the Chief of Logistics and Program Management, Aviation and Missile Command at Fort Eustis, admitted to fraudulently obtaining goods through the General Services Administration (GSA) Advantage website. The GSA Advantage system is an e-business website designed to facilitate on-line purchasing and GSA Schedules contract research by federal employees and local government entities. GSA Advantage gives various government agencies access to millions of commercial products and services. From in or about Aug. 19, 2010, to about mid-2015, Friend made approximately 666 orders totaling approximately $2.3 million using his GSA Advantage account

According to court documents, an investigation conducted by the GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), the DoD’s OIG, and the FBI determined that many of the items purchased by Friend were taken for personal use, and that Friend would take certain items to an outside business where he and/or another conspirator would remove GSA shipping labels and resell the items for private financial gain. The investigation revealed that certain items were sold over the eBay auction website.

Beyond Friend’s fraudulent use of GSA Advantage, law enforcement also determined that Friend fraudulently obtained $228,685.55 worth of equipment for Fort Lee through the U.S. Falcon contract. In total, Friend fraudulently obtained goods valued at approximately $905,035.82.

Friend was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $715,829 as well as criminal forfeiture. Friend previously forfeited property valued at $189,206.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 4:16-cr-24

As a follow-up to a $50.6 million corporate settlement in 2010, the U.S. Government now has filed suit under the False Claims Act against two former executives of Louis Berger Group, Inc. (LBG) for conspiring to overbill the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies for costs incurred performing reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.

The government’s complaint alleges that Derish M. Wolff and Salvatore J. Pepe, respectively the former CEO and CFO of LBG, designed and directed various accounting schemes that resulted in the company billing the government for indirect overhead costs at inflated rates.

According to the complaint, Wolff and Pepe shifted portions of salaries of LBG executives and accounting personnel from contracts paid for by foreign and state governments and private entities to contracts paid for by the United States. Wolff and Pepe allegedly certified the false rates and submitted them to the government in annual financial reports.

In November 2010, the U.S. resolved criminal and civil claims against LBG arising from this conduct. At that time, LBG entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement and paid $50.6 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. Pepe pleaded guilty on that date to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government and was later sentenced to one year probation. Wolff pleaded guilty to the same charge on Dec. 12, 2014, and was later sentenced to 12 months of home confinement and required to pay a $4.5 million fine for his role in the scheme. The complaint filed on July 28, 2016 asserts civil claims against Wolff and Pepe.

The government filed its complaint in a lawsuit originally brought under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, by Harold Salomon, an LBG accountant from March 2002 to October 2005. Under the Act, a private citizen can sue on behalf of the U.S. and share in any recovery. The U.S. is also entitled to intervene in the lawsuit, as it has done in this case.

This matter is being handled by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, with investigative support from the FBI, USAID’s Office of Inspector General, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The case is United States ex rel. Harold Salomon v. Derish M. Wolff & Salvatore J. Pepe, Civ. No. RWT-06-1970 (D. Md.). The claims asserted against Wolff and Pepe are allegations only to the extent not admitted in their criminal pleas, and there has been no determination of civil liability.